(Newser)
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A rarity in the weight wars: An FDA advisory panel gave the green light today to a diet pill that could become the first such drug to hit the market in more than a decade. The FDA is expected to make a final decision next month on Contrave, though it generally follows the advice of its panels. Made by Orexigen Therapeutics—whose shares were soaring, notes Bloomberg—Contrave has what MedPage Today describes has "modest" weight-loss effects.

Panel members thought the benefit outweighed potential side effects such as high blood pressure. Contrave is a combination of two drugs already on the market: bupropion, an antidepressant also used to quit smoking, and naltrexone, which is used to treat addictions to alcohol and painkillers. One pharmacy professor tells MedPage Today he's sure it will be a huge success initially. "Time will ultimately tell if it is a good drug or not," he adds. "In the meantime, I'm going to let somebody else be the first to take it."

The FDA cannot be trusted. They're responsible for no serious inspections in places where our food comes from - eg. factory farms, dangerous levels of tans fats in our food and a continuous resistance to food labeling. The FDA has strong ties to the food industry that always looks for the cheapest way to get food on your plates - and it isn't safe. They have friends in the tobacco industry which explains why we still don't know what the ingredients are in cigarettes. They allow serious levels of contaminated soil to remain everywhere food is processed from the corn that's grown to the filthy conditions in meat packing houses.

Realist

Dec 7, 2010 10:00 PM CST

FFS! To account for becoming so fat and lazy by neglecting yourself and eating utterly shit food laden with chemicals and bereft of any real nutritional value, try a cocktail of some more chemicals so you can keep being a fat lazy burden - oh, and thanks for helping out Big Pharma - we really need every penny!

finkster

Dec 7, 2010 8:19 PM CST

And in a couple of years after Orexigen Therapeutics has made billions of dollars and killed thousands of people suddenly a new study will come out about Contrave's harmful effects.